1. Field
The disclosure relates generally to an improved data processing system and more specifically to a method and apparatus for managing a calendaring system. Still more particularly, the illustrative embodiments provide a method, apparatus, and computer program for managing follow-up appointments in an improved calendaring system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A calendaring system maintains information associated with one or more events. An event in the calendaring system may be in the past, the present, or the future. A calendaring system may be implemented on one or more data processing systems in hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software. An example of how a calendaring system may be implemented is through one or more calendaring servers and one or more calendaring clients. One example of such an implementation is a calendaring server that stores the information associated with the events of one or more users. In the example of a calendaring server, one or more users may employ one or more calendaring clients. The calendaring clients, which may be implemented in a Web browser or one or more executables in an operating system, may process interaction with the user and may send and receive communications to the calendaring server. The calendaring server that may receive the requests may be implemented using one or more executables in an operating system or a Web server. Examples of requests that may be received by the calendaring server are a request to create an appointment, a request to modify an appointment, and a request for the information associated with one or more events the user has requested.
People frequently make use of a calendaring system in managing their schedules, such as appointments. Calendaring systems store the appointments of a particular user and display the appointments in such a way that the user can manage the user's time. Calendaring systems also allow the user to manage the scheduling of an appointment involving multiple users using appointment requests. The user who wishes to schedule the appointment creates an appointment request in the calendaring system and provides a listing of other users to be invited to the appointment.
Items discussed at an appointment may not be resolved during the appointment. As a result, additional appointments may be needed to resolve those items. Examples of such items include items that require further decisions based on the passage of time and items that could not be resolved due to time constraints at the first appointment. One more specific example is a budget appointment. Three topics may be on the appointment agenda for discussion. When the budget appointment is held by the attendees, the allotted time for the appointment may expire before one of the three scheduled items are discussed. In that example, a second budget appointment may be needed to address the remaining scheduled item. Additionally, status updates on the two scheduled items discussed at the first budget appointment may require additional discussion, such as a progress update.
With the need to hold additional appointments, a user in the calendaring system may create a new appointment request and re-invite the other users for each of the additional appointments.